Silver Stars center Jayne Appel had one of the best games in her young WNBA career, a performance that reflected the progress she made this season.

But in a microcosm of the Silver Stars' season, even the high-water moments get lost under the wave of adversity.

Playing their second game in as many nights — and with only eight players — the Silver Stars fell to Los Angeles 80-67 before 8,086 at the AT&T Center on Saturday.

The loss all but eliminated the team from the playoffs. The Silver Stars (11-19) mathematically can secure the Western Conference's final postseason berth — Minnesota, Los Angeles and Seattle already have clinched — but would need to win their final four games and hope Phoenix stumbles down the stretch.

The Mercury and Silver Stars still face off against each other two more times.

“I think we made the most of this season so far, growing and learning, and people being able to adapt,” said Appel, who tallied 10 points and 12 rebounds for her second career double-double.

“We'll take our positives out of it and continue to get better each time.”

On this night, the Silver Stars took pride in how well they competed despite being undermanned when rookie Davellyn White — who had replaced the injured Danielle Robinson at point guard — was unable to play because of a foot injury.

The Silver Stars trailed 60-51 with nine minutes to play thanks largely to the play of Jia Perkins, who scored a game-high 25 points. But they weren't able to overtake the Sparks (21-8), who got double-doubles from Nneka Ogwumike (19 points, 10 rebounds) and Candace Parker (12 points, 11 boards).

“Just a good effort on our part,” Silver Stars coach Dan Hughes said. “I think we were tough enough for the back-to-back, I just didn't think we had enough bodies to absorb the minutes against a really good team like that.”

But it wasn't for a lack of trying on the part of the Silver Stars, who were playing their sixth game in 10 days. They battled back from big deficits throughout, closing within 54-47 late in the third quarter, 35-30 at halftime on Appel's putback with 0.2 seconds left and 19-16 after one period — despite the Sparks shooting 69.2 percent.

“I think everyone right now in this locker room, even though the box score doesn't reflect a win, I think everyone's proud of how we came out,” Appel said. “Just kind of ran out of gas. You can tell the difference between the first quarter and fourth quarter, and not having enough legs for our shots.”